12 Zany Facts About Steven Wright

1. Steven Alexander Wright is an American comedian, actor, writer, and an Oscar-winning film producer.

2. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations.

3. Wright was ranked as the twenty-third greatest comedian by Comedy Central in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.

4. In 1982 executive producer of The Tonight Show Peter Lassally saw Wright performing on a bill with other local comics at the Ding Ho comedy club, a venue Wright described as “half Chinese restaurant and half comedy club.

5. Records, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.

6. The success of this album landed him an HBO special which he recorded as a live college concert performance, A Steven Wright Special.

7. By then Wright had firmly developed a new brand of obscure, laid-back performing and was rapidly building a cult-like following of hip, savvy fans and an onstage persona characterized by an aura of obscurity, with his penchant for non-sequiturs and subdued, slowly-paced delivery style only adding to his mystique.

8. “He walked into my dressing room, minutes before I was to take the stage, and asked if he could borrow a shirt, as his had a giant pizza stain.

9. You would think it might be normal to be a little nervous going on a college stage in front of 23,000, let alone having HBO out there filming, but as I passed by his room while walking on-stage I saw him sound asleep and loudly snoring.”

10. In 1989 he and fellow producer Dean Parisot won an Academy Award for their 30-minute short film “The Appointments of Dennis Jennings,” directed by Parisot, written by Mike Armstrong and Wright, and starring Wright and Rowan Atkinson.

11. In 1992 Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom Mad About You.

12. Numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulate on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin.